Does nail polish go bad?

byThe Beauty Brains

Patricia’s puzzled about polish:Does nail polish go bad or can it become contaminated? For example, you paint your nails once or twice and then don’t use it for a couple of years because you misplaced it, is it still safe?

The Right Brain nails the right answer:

If you’re looking for an excuse to splurge on a new bottle of OPI, we could tell you that you have to throw your old nail polish away after 6 months because it’ll spoil like a bottle milk on a hot summer day. But if you want to know the truth, we have to tell you that nail polish doesn’t really go bad.

Bacteria

Unlike water based cosmetics which are breeding grounds for bacteria, nail polish is pretty much self-preserving because of all the solvents it contains. (Not much grows in a ethyl acetate cocktail!) Just look at the major ingredients in an OPI nail polish: Butyl Acetate, Toluene, Nitrocellulose, Ethyl Acetate, Tosylamide/Formaldehyde Resin, Dibutyl Phthalate, and Isopropyl Alcohol. Nothing’s gonna grow in THAT chemical cocktail. You could say that nail polish is preservative free!

Dry Solvent evaporation

Of course just because it won’t grow bacteria doesn’t mean it can’t dry out. If you didn’t screw the cap on nice and tight before you lost the bottle two years ago, you can pretty much kiss your polish goodbye. Because those same solvents that won’t grow bugs will do something else: evaporate! And once nail polish dries out there’s not much that can be done to save it.

The Beauty Brains bottom line

While your polish may dry out quickly if you leave the cap off, you don’t have much to fear in terms of it spoiling because of old age. In fact, scientists predict that Hostess Twinkies and OPI nail polish will be the only things to survive a nuclear explosion. Oh wait a minute, that’s cockroaches. Well, never mind, you get the idea. And if you’re wondering about your other beauty products you might want to read our previous post on 4 Ways To Tell If Your Cosmetic Has Expired.

PS If you’re losing bottles of nail polish for years at a time, it sounds like you need a good makeup case!

What do YOU think? What’s the longest you’ve ever held on to a bottle of nail polish? Leave a comment and share your tawdry secrets with the rest of the Beauty Brains community.